A new plan expected to be introduced to the Colorado legislature this week would overhaul conflicting fiscal provisions in the state’s constitution by repealing Amendment 23, which boosts K-12 education funding, and portions of the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR).

The plan, expected to be hashed out in the remaining few weeks of the legislative session, was developed by term-limited Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff.

TABOR, passed in 1992, limits state government spending and taxation and requires the state to refund any revenue in excess of set limits. Amendment 23, passed in 2000, requires annual funding increases for K-12 schools. The constraining of the budget on one hand while mandating certain spending requirements on the other has placed pressure on the state budget, forcing legislators to cut funding in areas such as higher education.

“Conflicting mandates have had us in a fiscal straitjacket for years,” said President Jordan, who supports the proposed plan. “They alternately limit spending and require more spending. Some years the legislature even has the money, but not the flexibility to spend it where it’s needed, specifically on higher education… We need to remove the bureaucratic constraint of conflicting fiscal imperatives.”

Romanoff’s plan would create a savings account (or rainy-day fund) for public schools, require a two-thirds vote of both houses to access the account, repeal the automatic spending increases for K-12 schools in Amendment 23, and eliminate the tax surplus refund provision of TABOR (the monies from which would go into the education rainy-day fund). It would leave unchanged the portion of TABOR that requires a citizen vote on tax increases.

Referendum C, passed by voters in 2005, provided a five-year timeout on TABOR, allowing the state to spend an estimated $3.7 billion it would otherwise have refunded to taxpayers between 2006 and 2001. The new plan would eliminate the refunds permanently.

Romanoff’s plan has been applauded in editorials in both the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post for its “ingenuity.” Because the Colorado Constitution requires that any ballot measure be confined to a single subject, lawmakers have struggled for years over a way to address the multiple laws that tangle the Colorado budget. Romanoff’s plan addresses this by combining the repeals under the single rubric of public education funding.

The bill, once it’s introduced to the legislature, would require a two-thirds approval in each house and voter approval in November.